Fujitsu has signed an agreement with NSW Businesslink, on behalf of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) to migrate approximately 27,000 mailboxes into its messaging-as-a-service (MaaS) platform.

Under the agreement, Fujitsu will migrate and run the messaging platform for FACS under a cloud-based 'pay-as-you-go' model to provide case workers remote access to their email and calendars via a mobile device.

Albert Olley, NSW Businesslink managing director and CEO, said the initiative aligns with the NSW government's strategy of consumer IT services on a pay-as-you-go model.

"The solution provided by Fujitsu will have a significant community impact with case workers across NSW being able to access email and calendars on their mobile devices. This means that they can spend more time helping people who are desperately in need of their services," he said.

The migration will see FACS mailboxes move from an Exchange 2003 platform to an Exchange 2013 environment in the Fujitsu private hosted cloud located in one of Fujitsu's Australian data centres. Fujitsu will also provide the platform on an 'Evergreen' basis to accommodate for ongoing platform upgrades to ensure that FACS will have the latest version of the messaging platform.

The commencement of the three-month rollout of the MaaS capability follows the successful completion of an initial pilot of 100 users. Fujitsu anticipates the rollout of MaaS for FACS will be completed by September 2014, with 3,000 mailboxes already deployed with MaaS.

Tim White, Fujitsu Australia's group executive director of managed services, said the company's MaaS service is underpinned by the its overall cloud strategy, which the company recently announced it will be injecting 200 billion yen into over the next two years.

"[The MaaS] is underpinned by our cloud platform and infrastructure-as-a-service layer within our business. It provides flexible, scalable, and more importantly a higher availability environment to NSW Businesslink and the Family and Community Services Department of NSW," he said.

"It's something we're very proud of and its aligned with our full portfolio of services on cloud, and our focus on end-user services and the end-user experience."

Last September, the NSW government released its Cloud Services Policy to help direct its agencies as they move to service-based IT solutions. As part of the move, NSW agencies will now have to "evaluate cloud‐based services when undertaking ICT procurements" to determine "the best-value sustainable investment".

"Cloud is the future of ICT service delivery, and this policy puts NSW at the forefront of the digital economy, giving public sector agencies the tools and information they need to adopt cloud-based solutions," said NSW Minister for Finance and Services Andrew Constance at the time.

"It will improve service delivery by allowing more agile, flexible, and reliable technology, and it will deliver cost savings by helping us get better value for money for these services."

Since completing a degree in journalism, Aimee has had her fair share of covering various topics, including business, retail, manufacturing, and travel. She continues to expand her repertoire as a tech journalist with ZDNet.